Ron Robins, MBA, Blog Author

For over forty years I have engaged in, and devoted myself to, the fields of economics, finance, and the development of human consciousness.

I'm deeply concerned about America's economic and financial problems and am writing a book on how I believe they can be fixed. The book's working title: "Resolving America's Economic Quagmire," with a subtitle, "People gaining inner fulfillment is the key.”

Statistics

Archive for the ‘Monetary Policy’ Category

“If members of Congress are to be believed, unless the president’s trade negotiator includes strict, enforceable prohibitions on policies to intentionally hold down the value of currencies, any completed trade accord will die on Capitol Hill. But, administration officials say, demanding the inclusion of such prohibitions would kill the trade deals before they were completed… Some 230 members of the House have pledged in writing to oppose future trade deals without action on currency, more than enough to stop the president’s agenda.”— Currency Battle Is Tethered to Obama Trade Agenda , by Jonathan Weisman, February 16, 2015, The New York Times, U.S.A.

Commentary: Ron RobinsMany astute observers in the financial world are deeply concerned about ‘currency wars.’ I share their concern. Furthermore, I have long argued that central bank activities such QE and interest rate manipulations — though seemingly a relatively easy antidote to immediate economic ills — eventually lead to the breakdown of the very economic system it seeks to preserve. And one of the main reasons for that will be their knock-on effects on currencies.

To gain economic advantage or even just to maintain one’s present standing, nations are being forced into QE of various types as well as manipulating lower their interest rates, thereby increasing monetary aggregates and forcing down their currency values. Competitive currency wars are ensuing and economic distress is spreading. In the end, most, if not all nations will be forced to agree to abandon QE and interest rate manipulations.

Nature itself, is cyclic. So it seems is economic thinking with regard to manipulating or not economic activities. At this time the cyclic pendulum’s return to either truly free enlightened trading between nations, or to one that’s highly restrictive, is in our future. I believe in and hope for the former!

In that post I investigated how unemployment rates, payroll numbers, the consumer price index (CPI), savings rates, and gross domestic product (GDP), have seen their statistical philosophical and methodological foundations changed. And these changes almost always make the economy appear in better shape than it would have been by using prior statistical methodologies.

Furthermore, these changed methodologies have not occurred by only wanting to make the statistics more honest. No. In fact, political interference (documented by Shadowstats) is behind most of the major changes so that the government of the day appeared in a better light.

The spin of this ‘growing’ economy has been taken to heart by the richest 20% of families — those who have been able to borrow for next to nothing and invest in foreclosed homes, stock and bond markets. They have invested and seen their investments rise markedly. They are happy.

But for most people — the other 80% — they are neither happy nor convinced of the efficacy of the present government’s economic spin. (See the exit polls of the November 4 midterm elections!) Truly illustrating the difference in economic well-being between the rich and everyone else are the results of a Gallup poll.

In August, Gallup found that, “Americans with an annual household income of $90,000 or more continue to have more economic confidence than those who live in households with less annual income. Upper-income Americans had an index score of -2 in August, up slightly from -5 the past two months. Lower and middle-income Americans, on the other hand, averaged -18, similar to -19 in July.” Recent data from multiple sources indicates this divergence continues to exist.

The difficulty for most working Americans is that according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), workers incomes over the past few years are barely matching — if at all — their rising cost of living as measured by BLS’s own (politically influenced) consumer price index (CPI). But ask most workers and they will tell you their living costs are up much more than the government’s CPI.

This is verified by independent inflation measures such as the Guild Basic Needs Index (GBNI) which includes only food, clothing, shelter and energy (thus covering most of the expenses for the majority of people). Using their latest data points from July 2009 to July 2014, the GBNI rose by a significant 22.8% compared to the 10.6% rise in the CPI over the same period.

Interestingly, while living costs have risen and left individuals with less disposable income, savings rates have increased. It seems the experience of financially difficult times for most people in recent years, including unemployment, severe losses in home equity, and for many the need to save for a fast approaching retirement, has convinced them to save more. Savings rates are now averaging above 5% says the Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA).

But again, savings rates would be much less if previous methodologies were used. For instance, in 2006 and 2007, savings rates were about -2% but had become +3% after methodical revisions. Savings rates prior to 1985 were mostly above 10%.

Perhaps of even greater concern is that consumer debt is once again growing much faster than incomes indicating the U.S. is on the continuing treadmill to further financial crises. Between July 2011 and July 2014, Federal Reserve data show consumer debt grew from $2,722 billion to $3,233 billion, a rise of 18.8%, compared to personal income gains over the same period of just 11.8% ($13,294 billion and $14,860 billion.)

The real concern with consumer debt was highlighted by Constantine Van Hoffman, writing for CBS Moneywatch on September 11, 2014. She wrote that, “[quoting CardHub] ‘by the end of 2014 U.S. consumers [with about $7,000 each in credit card debt] will be roughly $1,300 away from the credit card debt tipping point, where minimum payments become unsustainable and delinquencies skyrocket.” And this is with ultra low-interest rates. What happens when they rise?

Rapid debt accumulation in excess of income growth indicates people demanding goods and services now no matter the eventual financial cost to themselves. To me, this suggests — barring extreme confidence about their future circumstances — the possibility of deep inner insecurity and lack of personal fulfillment among individuals. Unbeknownst to our political and economic leaders, this mental state is really the central issue that has to be resolved before lasting economic sustainability can be gained. (See, The Missing Ingredient in Economics — Consciousness.)

Government and financial institutions are aware of the harm caused by excessive and irresponsible debt growth and asset valuations. Alan Greenspan, former Chairman of the Federal Reserve, has remarked that central banks are afraid to ‘prick’ asset bubbles for fear of causing market chaos. So, our economic elites believe they must continue to spin the illusion of economic good times no-matter the reality. Eventually, as in 2008, the illusory good times end, and sadly, financial difficulties and ruin occurs for many.

As understanding grows about the spinning of government economic statistics, as increasing savings rates restrain consumer spending, and as consumer debt rises far faster than incomes, it is just a question of time before the spin stops working and a bust ensues. For now though, the spin is working for the 20%. And they are happy.

By Ron Robins. First published June 6, 2011, in his weekly economics and finance column at alrroya.com

It is a simple statistic that continues to warn of huge economic problems ahead for the US. Some economists call it the ‘marginal productivity of debt (MPD).’ It relates the change in the level of all debt (consumer, corporate, government etc.) in a country to the change in its gross domestic product (GDP). However, due to the message it is delivering, most US economists employed in financial institutions, governments and private industry, as well as financiers and politicians, want to ignore it.

And for the US economy and government finances, the MPD (and related variants of it) is continuing to indicate extremely difficult economic times ahead.

I have vague recollections of the MPD concept from my economics classes long ago. But I was re-introduced to it around 2001 by a renowned economist who, during the following few years prior to his passing, became alarmed as to the MPD path of the US. His name was Dr. Kurt Richebächer, formerly chief economist and managing director of Germany’s Dresdner Bank. Dr. Richebächer, was so respected that former US Federal Reserve Chairman, Paul Volcker once said of him that, “sometimes I think that the job of central bankers is to prove Kurt Richebächer wrong,” reported the online financial journal, The Daily Reckoning on May 15, 2004.

Investigating Dr. Richebächer’s concern further, I wrote an article on my Enlightened Economics blog on January 23, 2008, titled, Is the Amazing US Debt Productivity Decline Coming to a Bad End? I found that, “for decades, each dollar of new debt has created increasingly less and less national income and economic activity. With this ‘debt productivity decline,’ new evidence suggests we could be near the end-game… ”

Another way of viewing the debt productivity problem is to look at it in terms of how many dollars of debt it took to help create total national income, which is the wages, salaries, profits, rents and interest income of everyone. Again, from my above mentioned article, which quotes Michael Hodges in his Total America Debt Report, that, “in 1957 there was $1.86 in debt for each dollar of net national income, but [by] 2006 there was $4.60 of debt for each dollar of national income – up 147 per cent. It also means this extra $2.74 of debt per dollar of national income produced zilch extra national income. In 2006 alone it took $6.32 of new debt to produce one dollar of national income.”

However, whereas the US private sector debt has marginally ‘de-leveraged’ (retrenched) since that crash (which might now be reversing), the US government, as everyone knows, has run up mammoth deficits to purportedly keep the country’s economy from imploding. Thus, the US’s MPD is marching to another, perhaps even more frightening tune, suggesting government financial insolvency and/or debt default.

One fascinating way of looking at the declining MPD of US government debt has just been presented by Rob Arnott on May 9, 2011, in his post, Does Unreal GDP Drive Our Policy Choices? What Mr. Arnott does is to subtract out the change in debt growth from GDP, and refers to this statistic as ‘Structural GDP.’ He finds that, “the real per capita Structural GDP, after subtracting the growth in public debt, remains 10 per cent below the 2007 peak, and is down 5 per cent in the past decade. Net of deficit spending, our prosperity is nearly unchanged from 1998, 13 years ago.”

In its effort to counter the significant economic difficulties since 2008, the US government has added, or will have added, around $4 trillion in deficits (financed by new debt) in its three fiscal years 2009, 2010 and 2011. Yet, all this massive government deficit spending has failed to really ignite economic growth. Most likely this is because of the enormous dead weight of unproductive and onerous private sector debt, particularly that of consumer debt. Hence, real US GDP will have increased probably less than $1.5trn during these years. Including some further economic benefit in the years thereafter, a total GDP benefit of only about $2trn is probable.

So, $4trn borrowed for $2trn in GDP gains. Thus, in very rough round numbers, each new one dollar of US government debt might only produce $0.50 in new economic activity and probably only about $0.08 in new federal tax revenue. (Federal tax revenue as a percentage of GDP is around 15 per cent.) Therefore, the economic marginal return for each new dollar of US government debt is possibly around -50 per cent! If you loaned someone $10 million and they gave you back $5m, you would not be happy!

Hence, it might not be long before those holding or buying US government bonds perceive the reality that the US government, and US economy, are losing massively on government borrowings. This will result in much, much higher US government bond yields and interest costs. Most importantly, it may make the rollover of US debt and new debt issuance incredibly difficult unless either US taxes rise stratospherically to cover the deficits, and/or the US Federal Reserve money printing goes into hyper-drive to purchase the debt the markets will not buy. (Of course US banks, pension funds etc., could also be forced to buy them.)

Thus, the idea that US government debt continues to be ‘risk-free’ is absurd.

For this, and for many other reasons cited above, is why the US financial and political elites want to keep hush-hush about what the MPD and its variants reveal!